Oehler, Gustav Friedrich, a very eminent Old- Testament scholar of Germany, was born at Ebingen, in Wiirtemberg, June 10, 1812. Having finished his theological studies at Tubingen, he was appointed a lecturer at the Missionary Institution at Basle, which position he occupied from 1834 to 1837. After this he became a member of the theological seminary in Tubingen, teaching at the same time in the univer- sity there. In 1810 he was appointed vicar in Stutt- gard, and in the same year professor of the theological seminary at Schiinthal. In 1815 he accepted a call from the theological faculty in Breslau, Silesia, where he lect- ured until 1852, when he returned to Tubingen to oc- cupy tlie same position there, besides having the cphor- alty over the liigher theological seminary. He died Feb. 20, 1872. He published a great many essays and articles in different reviews, in Herzog's theological and Schmid's p;edagogical encyclopaedias; and the follow- ing works, Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testa- ine/ites (Stuttgard, 1845) : — Comment at ionum ad tkeolo- giam pertinentium, -pars I (ibid. 1846): — Die GrundzUgc derA lltestamentlichen Weisheit (Tubingen, 1854) -.— Ueher dusVerhiiltniss derAlttestamentlichen ProiJhetie zur Heid-
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nischen Mantih (ibid. 18GI) -.—Zivei Seminarreden (ibid. 1870) -.—Gesammelte Seminarreden (ibid. 1872) ; but his main work is Thenlogie des Alten Testamentes (1873, 1874, 2 vols.), published by his son immediately after the author's death, and giving the substance of his the- ological lectures delivered from 1839 to 1871, and of his articles published in different cyclopajdias and reviews. Of the last-mentioned work an English translation has been prepared by E. D. Smith, of which the first volume, entitled Theolofjy of the Old Testament, was published at Edinburgh in 1874. This work, tliough it is char- acterized rather by fulness of details than by compre- hensiveness of principles, yet exhibits on every page signs of the most conscientious diligence. This is espe- cialh' the case in all matters connected with Old-Testa- ment exegesis. It is therefore free from the serious blemishes which damage all its predecessors, the valu- able work of Schultz not excepted. It is characterized as follows by a writer in the Brit. Qii. Rec, (Jan. 1875) p. 147, 148 :
"Oeliler was a strong believer in the supernatural, and was imbued with the most profound reverence for OJd-Tes- tament Scripture. With regnrd to the relation of the Old Testament to the New, he held a middle position between the view of Hengsteuberg and the older orthodox party, which did not distinguish between the two, and that of Marcion and Schleiermacher, which entirely cuts loose the Old-Testnment religion from the New, thereby re- ducing it to a level with the other pre-Christian religions, and making it of scarcely greater importance for the ex- planation of the Christian system than the theology of Homer. While Oehler has successfully maintained against Henajstenberg that the Old and New Testaments were so distinct that no New-Testament idea is fully set forth in the Old, he yet holds that the connection between them is so intimate and essential tliat the genesis of all the ideas of New-Testament salvaticm lie in the Old, and that both must stand or fall together. He must not be under- stood, however, as holding the opinion that the growth of religious ideas was owing to a certain religious sense, which became clearer and fuller with the progress of time, for he repudiates altogether this theory of the ratioual- istic schools. While admiring the author's moderation and devoteduess, we cannot help thinking that out of this too decided opposition to the above schools arose two rad- ical defects, which pervade the whole work, viz., a painful and unsuccessful attempt to reconcile all discrepancies between the different religious views and tendencies, e. g. to reduce to complete harmony the different parts of the Old Testament : and an entire exclusion of all side-lights from non-Biblical sources. According to his own princi- ple, God must have gradually, and by means of enlight- ened leaders, removed his people more and more from heathenism ; and a complete history of the process would necessitate a comparison with heathen views. There must have been a period in which the religious views of Juda- ism and heathenism were closely allied. Yet we find scarcely an allusion to the latter. The same exclusive tendency caused him, somewhat inconsistently, to limit his investisiation to the canonical writings of the Old Tes- tament. This tendency alone would suffice to render his work, though richer in detail, inferior in breadth and comprehensiveness to the valuable volumes of Hermann Schultz, and will cause the readers of Evvald, who lives in a different plane from ordinary men, to feel that they are entering a new world of thought and freedom." See Theulnr/isches Uiiiversal-Lexikon, s. v. ; Kurtz, (7/m/?-cA History (Philadelphia, 1875), ii, 375; Lehrbuch der Ki?-- chenr/esehichte (^Mitau, 1874), ii, 323; Hauck, Theologi- scher Juhresbericht, vi, 259 ; viii, 65, G46 sq. ; IVoiie zum Amknken an Br. G. F. v. Oehler (1873), containing the addresses made at his funeral, and also a brief sketch of his life. (.J. H.W.)
Oehlmiiller, Daniel Joseph, an eminent German architect, was born at Bamberg in 1791. He studied under Carl Fischer, and then visited Italy and Sicily, where he passed four years in studying and copying the principal edifices, until he was summoned home" in 1819 to superintend the erection of the Gli/ptotheca at Mimich, after the designs of Klenze. In 1831 he was commis- sioned to make designs in the Gothic style for a church in the suburbs of Munich, which gained him great repu- tation. He erected in the same style the national mon- ument at Wittelsbach, and the Otto chapel at Kiefers- felden. Among his other works is the Church of St. Theresa at Halbergmoos, in the Italian style. commenced in 1833. At the death of Domenico Quaglio, in 1837,